3D Printed Organs Are One Step Closer To Reality

Scientists have made a hydrogel model of a lung-mimicking air sac to deliver oxygen to surrounding blood vessels.

Rice University

Researchers at Rice University, the University of Washington and others have created a working blood vessel network on a 3D printer that could eventually be part of a human lung or liver. But they stress it is only one step towards building organs that have very complex structures.

Miller likens the process to the very beginnings of a Lego creation. "It's kind of like the building of the smallest functioning Lego block, characterizing how strong it is, and then using that to build a whole castle."

Stevens verified the technology could also work in a liver but there is still a lot of work to be done considering the liver has 500 functions. "And we tested one of those 500 functions and there is a long way to go," she says. "We will test many more of those functions."

While Stevens and Miller are creating parts of 3D printed organs, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and others are making miniature livers called organoids, using pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), or cells freshly isolated from human livers.

Miller says organoids are limited in size but he thinks the two methods could be compatible. "We actually see a really big opportunity to load our 3D printed architecture with the differentiating cells that the organoid community is making and it could be a match made in heaven."

He says the two could unify and become highly scaleable. Miller has made his 3D printing files available to the public to let others build on what he's developed. He is commercializing key aspects of the research through a Houston-based startup called Volumetric.

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Clinical trials are tentatively scheduled for 2020 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center's new Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine, where researchers are making miniature livers and pancreases, called organoids.

As amazing as it sounds, 3D printed parts can now talk wirelessly to smart devices without electronics. This means consumers can hook up an attachment to a laundry detergent bottle they print out and it would automatically connect to a smart phone and order more when running low.

A new report says the global 3D printing market will hit $32.3 billion by 2025, an increase of $25 billion. It's easy to see why with the most complicated machines costing as much as $2 million and printing parts for jet engines.

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